Zara broke the silence. “They’re sharing him.”

  Ayesha tried to shrug, tried to sound neutral. “Maybe he’s just a pceholder.”

  Zara gave her a look. “With tongue?”

  Ayesha gripped her notebook until the spirals dug into her palm. The metal bit in, and still, she didn’t let go.

  Because if she did, something else might snap.

  She looked away from the scene - from Marisol’s easy smile, from the shadow of Sarah’s kiss still lingering in the air - and stared down at the blue-and-gold school logo on the tile floor.

  And that’s when the voice in her head finally screamed what she didn’t want to hear.

  You chose wrong.

  She’d told herself it was strategic.

  On Day One, when she and Bharath had shared a cab from the airport - all nerves and new beginnings - he’d been sweet. Endearingly awkward but still charming. The kind of guy who listened. Who ughed at her jokes like he actually meant it. Who looked at her like she mattered.

  For a moment, she thought maybe…

  But then Day Two happened.

  Zara’s snide comments. The disapproving once-over. “You’re talking to him?”

  And Ayesha, like a fool, had ughed. Had shrugged. Had distanced herself. One step at a time, she edged toward the cool crowd. Toward safety. Toward what she thought success looked like.

  It worked. Sort of.

  Her rise had been fast. Her name floated around the freshman girls like a brand. People invited her to everything. Uppercssmen flirted. Guys looked. Girls imitated.

  But it was never free.

  The parties were exhausting. The guys - older, bolder - often treated her like decoration. Their hands slid too low, too often. They smelled like vodka and entitlement. And when she’d flinch or pull away, they’d ugh like she was a silly little girl.

  She justified it.

  It’s just part of the game.

  This is the price. Everyone pays it.

  Just stay sharp. Stay cold. Stay wanted.

  But each time she ughed off a grope or let a hand linger too long on her waist because the guy was a senior with access to off-campus housing, something inside her shriveled a little more.

  She hadn’t had a real conversation - a real, kind moment - since August.

  Since that cab ride.

  With him.

  She gnced back across the hallway.

  Bharath was saying something to Marisol, and she ughed again - that effortless kind of ugh that sounded real, like it had breath behind it.

  And it killed her.

  Because Marisol wasn’t the nice girl from orientation. She was sharp. Sarcastic. Territorial.

  Yet with Bharath, she was soft.

  Gentle.

  Almost… protective.

  It didn’t make sense.

  Marisol should’ve been the one with the upper hand - the one using him.

  That’s what Ayesha had assumed all along.

  But now? She looked like she would bite anyone who tried to hurt him.

  And Sarah?

  Sarah had looked like she could have anyone - anyone - on this campus. But she had come back, in the middle of a school day, just for a kiss.

  Ayesha shook her head.

  It wasn’t fair.

  Bharath hadn’t changed a thing.

  Still the same quiet boy with the low voice and that weird, deliberate way of speaking. Still the same eyes that looked straight at you like he wasn’t distracted. Still soft-spoken. Still humble.

  He didn’t chase clout.

  He didn’t try to be cool.

  He just was - and now?

  Now he was famous.

  And her?

  Ayesha had reshaped herself into the perfect campus butterfly - stylish, witty, part of every important circle. She was visible. She was relevant.

  And she was so damn tired.

  Zara’s constant edge although she was a true friend. The backhanded compliments from the others. The fake friendships that sted only until someone prettier entered the room. The way people only wanted to talk to her when there was a party coming up or a guy needed someone on his arm.

  She hadn’t told anyone about the time a grad student had cornered her outside a frat house and whispered something disgusting in her ear, his hand gripping her wrist too tightly.

  She hadn’t even processed the way she sometimes ughed when older men leered - because it was easier than starting a scene, easier than being “the girl who made drama.”

  She used to love talking.

  Now it felt like every conversation came with a filter and a price.

  That taxi ride in August?

  It had been the st time she spoke freely. With someone who looked at her without calcution. Without agenda.

  She remembered what Bharath had said when she told him she was nervous about GT.

  “You’ll be great. You have that energy. Like... you light up the room.”

  He meant it. Not like a pickup line. Just - meant it.

  She remembered ughing. Genuinely. No performance. No armor.

  And then she gave that up.

  For what? For Zara?

  For frat mixers and shallow eyes and that horrible, constant game of “Who’s looking at whom”?

  Bharath had kept being himself.

  And now?

  Now he had real friends.

  People who wanted him - not because he was convenient or hot or popur, but because he mattered to them.

  And she had Zara.

  Who was currently specuting in a half-loud whisper whether Bharath was “a really polite wizard” or just “some kind of sex alien from Chennai.”

  Ayesha didn’t respond.

  Because her throat was thick with something sharp and miserable.

  She looked at Bharath again.

  Not his body - though now that she noticed, he was fit. Not bulky, not showy - just lean, cut. Quietly powerful. Like he’d always had it but never showed it off.

  He didn’t need to. Because he wasn’t trying to impress anyone. And somehow, that had become magnetic. The universe had rewritten the rules, and no one had told her. She had followed the script: flirt, py hard to get, stay pretty, stay visible.

  But Bharath had thrown out the script and written his own part - and now he was living it, while she was stuck onstage reciting lines she didn’t believe in anymore.

  Zara snapped her fingers in front of her. “You good?”

  Ayesha blinked. “Yeah. Just… tired.”

  Zara scoffed. “Girl, same. I need, like, three Red Bulls and a good facial.”

  Ayesha forced a nod.

  But her mind was far away. Somewhere between August and now. Somewhere between the sweet boy in the cab and the legend walking the halls with two women who looked like magazine covers and treated him like he was worth the world.

  She had thrown him away. And now? She was watching everyone else pick him up. That was it. She couldn’t take this anymore. Who the hell did he think he was? Time to let that nerd know his true pce in the real world.

  The hallway had barely begun recovering from The Kiss - Sarah’s volcanic dispy, the girl-on-girl smooch, and the casual "I’ll be back for lunch" that had broken at least three freshmen’s brains.

  People were still murmuring. A guy by the bulletin board was whispering about “tantric coding sessions.” A girl near the stairwell decred, “This is better than anything on Dawson’s Creek.” A crowd had formed - not intentionally, but magnetically, orbiting the gravity field around Bharath, Marisol, and the now-departed Sarah.

  And in the center of it all?

  Bharath, standing slightly dazed, lips a little swollen, shirt a little rumpled.

  Marisol, arm hooked through his, smiling like this was all exactly as it should be.

  Then-

  “You should be ashamed of yourself!”